24 7
by StormXPadme
Summary: 24 hours of waiting helplessly by his bedside. 24 hours of fear. It's the worst 24 hours in Natasha's life... again.


**a) This story originally was written in German. I'm Austrian and mainly write in German, so you'll find all of my other fanfics on fanfiktion . de. I don't often do translations so please bear with me. This is kind of an experiment. Haven't translated such a long text since I was in school. If I get the feeling this doesn't really bring the message across, I'll have to reconsider doing this or preferably find some kind of help. Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone so far.  
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**b) This story will contain explicit Nc 17-scenes, including detailed BDSM-content. Such scenes will not be published here but will only be privately available. Reviewer at a legal age, just contact me with your e-mail-address to have the relevant uncut chapter sent to you.**

******c) Oh, and if anyone has any idea how to make documents on more readable without doing copy and paste and html for hours, I'll really appreciate it... Missing paragraphs are driving me nuts.  
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title: The Avengers: 24/7

author: Storm{X}Padmé

disclaimer: All the original characters and elements belong to Marvel, the legal owners und everyone paying for it. Promise to give them back, just borrowing. Won't hurt them. At least not much *G*.

universe: movieverse ‚The Avengers'

timeline: set after ‚The Avengers'; also contains many scenes taking place about 10 years before and during 'The Avengers'

rating: R (language, adult content)

summary: 24 hours of waiting helplessly by his bedside. 24 hours of fear. It's the worst 24 hours in Natasha's life… again.

formalities:

- italics = memories, dreams or emphasis

- ‚ ‚-marks = own thoughts, telepathy or indirect speech

feedback:is not only appreciated but hugged, kissed, petted and called George :D

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_**The Avengers**_

_**24/7**_

_**prologue**_

_**T+1**_

Natasha saw that Clint's been shot, of course she saw.

It's not something they do consciously, always knowing what the other one's up to when doing battle together. They're both on this job for far too long to let unprofessional headaches distract them. But with the years passing, they developed an effective interaction, watching each other's back most efficiently. Since they were put in a team with a handful of freaks, they perfected it. They don't have any powers like the other Avengers to protect themselves in an open gunfight like this, facing ruthless HYDRA mercs. Natasha doesn't even wear Kevlar.

Clint always made fun of it, telling her he'll laugh at her heartily once a bullet might be faster than her reflexes. She keeps the thought that she'll have to throw him a silly comment when she hears his scream on the other side of the street, sees his muscular form fall. Fall right into the protective range of some car wrecks, thank God. Sometimes it's actually useful, this trail of destruction the Hulk leaves stomping through a battlefield.

Besides, Hill is close and heads for the injured agent right away, so Tasha ignores the pulse of running through the middle of a combat to get to him. Taking out the last of these bastards with a bullet right between the eyes takes priority. Additional heads or not, a muddy mess of a brain usually doesn't regrow. These scumbags disqualified themselves with planning to attack one of the governments largest nuke storages. If they would have succeeded with what they wanted to do here, right in the heart of Washington… Just picturing it leaves Natasha mad enough to take down the last of the enemies still shooting at them.

It's not been an easy victory. Never is when they can't rely on Thor's help because he's back on Asgard. Even someone a man Tony Stark knows that the shit just hit the fan when Bruce reluctantly brings himself to release his dangerous mutation. Today they didn't even have Iron Man by their side. Tony, using Jarvis' help, has been busy till the end to locate and deactivate every single one of the enemy's charges.

Steve held the silo's entrance, and it's probably only thanks to his advanced healing factor that _he's_ still standing. Even from here Natasha can see a lot of gaps and red spots on his uniform.

Gone, mostly forgotten already. There's been damage but nothing serious. Probably their greatest problem will be Fury slapping their wrists tonight for the need of renovating yet another district after the Avengers have visited it.

Well, much better than a whole continent made uninhabitable and a few hundred millions of dead people.

Relieved to hear the last blasts on Falls Road und the last sporadic, distant detonations fade away, Natasha lowers her Glock, straightening up from her pullback position behind some waste containers. Not her favourite hiding place. With a bad wish for a shower the last of adrenaline dies away.

First, she hardly notices the sound of a nearing helicopter. Executives, probably, or S.H.I.E.L.D. sending reinforcement. Maybe it's the press. Since her team saved New York from a psychopathic alien and his army, Natasha sees her face on Six O'Clock more often than she'd like to.

Her headset catches a S.H.I.E.L.D.-radio frequency, hectic voices, unusual after a successful mission. At the very second she turns to the entrance where she last saw Clint.

Her weapon hits the street with a dull bang. There's also the hammering sound of her own heels so her body apparently reacted before her mind really understood.

Before she understood why not only Maria but Tony, too, is kneeling over there, next to her longtime team partner. Why the helicopter is circling right above them now, approaching a much too small landing place between two mass crashes. Before Natasha catches, through the thickening fields of fog, that Clint is lying a pool of blood.

Before her growing shock allows her to accept that the mission has not been successful at all.

Tony pushes her back before she can come too close, telling her something, empty words going under in the chattering on the radio anyway. He's lucky to wear his suit, and he's lucky she doesn't have a useful weapon at her fingertips.

No, of course she doesn't have to get any closer to know that it's bad, very bad. And Natasha can rely on Hill doing her best to help till professional assistance will arrive. She can't do anything here anyway, Clint's being taking care of…

And that's just what she thought some minutes ago, making a decision which might just have been the most fatal of her life. With a growl Natasha ducks under Tony's arm- it does have advantages to be the tiniest team member. Though horror threatens to take her breath away, she forbids herself to look away. She's done that for far too long today. That's why she isn't surprised about what Hill has to tell her, about what she catches in the overlapping conversations in her earpiece. All this comforting phrases, hysterical orders and complicated terms in the end mean the same thing.

Natasha turned away at the wrong moment.

And now Clint is dying.

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„These are the last. Hopefully." Nick coming up from behind, addressing her, raises about as much interest in Natasha as the last visitors could. It's the rattling of razor sharp shrapnels on the drug table that makes her startle. „The forensics likes to give you a souvenir. There were two dozens of them. The goddamn bullet fragmented at first touch. It wouldn't have made a difference, Romanoff. There's nothing but deadly ammo in an arsenal like HYDRA's. Considering that, tough little trashmouth actually does pretty well." For just a wink of his remaining eye Nick stands looking at the sickbed before examining Natasha's stiff shape on the visitor's seat.

Her hands tensed around the arm rests. The hopelessness she can see in the blurred reflection of the window whenever she lifts her head. He means well but he's ignoring the catch, just like her team mates with their clumsy encouragements did.

She couldn't have done anything, and she knows. Nothing about Clint nearly bleeding to death on the battlefield or about his left thigh being a ruin. Nothing about the highly poisonous alloy of the HYDRA bullet destroying every tiniest hope either. The next 24 hours will show if his body will recover from all the chemicals. Natasha spent enough time in the helicarrier's sick bay to know when they're waiting for the end only.

When the attack happened, she probably couldn't have changed anything. If there'll be just one more soldier trying to get this into her head, she'll just have to ungracefully slice his throat with a pen ball. It's not because of that she's sitting here, still wearing her battle suit and the smell of waste, smoke and blood on her skin, waiting for the inevitable.

Clint probably won't wake up from the induced coma, but if he does, no matter for how long… Then she wants to be with him, the way she should have been earlier.

Nick murmured something else before leaving the room, maybe even something helpful like making sure that the two of them will be alone. He's the only one who understands, always has.

The digital numbers right above the bed tell Natasha that there hasn't even an hour passed since the shot. Since this short sound of pain thundering in her ears like the crack of an explosion right next to her. That was the moment when she should have moved.

She can't remember hearing Clint scream like that. He's always been the stronger one though probably he'd disagree vehemently. At least he would have done so if he wouldn't have caught a goddamn bullet and wouldn't be lying on the intensive care with half a dozen tubes in his body.

A dull throb in her palms reminds Natasha to relax her hands before she can knock the chair to pieces. If she'd have started to break things now she couldn't have stopped till the room wouldn't be of any further use. Starting with the nerve-racking peeping of the ECG. It's begun on the battlefield, this coldness in her mind enfolding her darkest emotions like Siberian ice, protecting what she's been trained for, for years. The rationality, the discipline, the control. This mechanism is about the first thing she's learned from Clint. There haven't been many of these outbursts since he freed her form her old life.

Occasions when she had felt so off… Since then they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Maybe of two hands.

And thinking about it… Every single one of them somehow was related to this man who maybe became the most important constant in her life without her even realizing. Clint… has always been there, without any of them ever feeling to be in bond to the other.

At least not in a way that others would realize. In fact he's the only red in Natasha's ledger that she could never wipe out. Probably she won't ever get the chance to now.

She'd love to close her eyes, to flee from the accusation of his sight, the lens tube in his mouth, the needles in his arms, the thick bandage under the cover. Instead she has to remind herself of blinking from time to time. She won't flee, not again, not this time. This time she'll be there for him as he was for her all these years, from the day he's entered her pathetic existence for the first time.

It will be the longest 24 hours of her life.


End file.
